Le Christ couronné d'épines

Around 1506 the young German painter Albrecht Dürer was in Venice, and he wrote home that Giovanni Bellini, though very old, was still the best painter in the city. Bellini was then in his seventies and had led Venetian painting for half a century. This is a private devotional panel, small enough to pray before at home. It shows the dead Christ upright at the edge of his open tomb, still wearing the crown of thorns, the wounds on his body shown plainly. His pupils Giorgione and Titian were already pulling Venetian painting toward something looser and warmer. Bellini keeps to what he did best, setting the pale figure against a still, sunlit landscape that runs back to low hills under an even light.